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World Eaters
The World Eaters are a Loyalist First Founding Space Marine Legion known for their savage tactics and brutal efficiency which is counteracted by their restraint and iron-bound discipline. Of all the Space Marine legions, none exemplifies the virtues of martial honour and strict self-control more than the World Eaters. Just as Angron transcended his violent youth, he ensured that his legion would shrug off every setback and betrayal to become paragons of the warrior creed, and ardent supporters of the Emperor's intention to unify the galaxy. Legion History The Terran origins of the XIIth began on Old Earth, during the Emperor's Wars of Unification. Extant records indicate that there was no particular bias as to the tribes or city states from which the initial influx of recruits was taken as there was in the case of several of their fellow Legions. There are rumours that psychological screening was used in order to single out the most inherently aggressive and obsessively competitive recruits in an experimental pre-selection program that might have informed the intake of a handful of other Legions as well. The truth of the matter might never be known, but supposition later formed to fit established facts, the XIIth were from the outset deemed a highly aggressive force, its warriors hot-blooded and savage. One of its most ferocious and promising candidates, Ibram Ghreer, rose quickly within the ranks of the nascent Legion, and eventually assumed command of the XIIth as its first Legion Master. The nascent Legion seems to have been largely held in reserve by the Emperor during the latter Unification Wars and right through the re-conquest of the Sol system, perhaps in case of a sudden reversal of the fortunes of war, or as veiled evidence implies, as a weapon to be unleashed in case of disloyalty among the Emperor's own. During this time the XIIth was kept in a state of constant readiness, training relentlessly and steadily growing in numbers. Though they waited in frustration at not being allowed to take part in the early stages of the Great Crusade, the long hours of arduous training instilled an implacable tenacity and iron-will discipline that would eventually become a part of their Legion training and doctrine. The XIIth became like a tightly wound coil, ready to spring with the slightest provocation. On the occasions it was brought into battle it performed with almost gleeful savagery, tearing apart whatever enemy it was given to fight without mercy or falter, regardless of its own losses and heedless of the risk. It is believed that is was during this period that the Emperor Himself dubbed the XIIth Legion his 'War Hounds' as a tribute to the savage and tenacious way they fought to pacify the narco-sprawls of the Cephic Hives, and in pride of this the symbol of the red hound became the Legion's badge of war. The Lord of the Red Sands According to Carpinus' Speculum Historiale, the best record of Angron's early years, the young primarch was born and raised into bloodshed and death, but never let these things claim him. Stolen away from the Emperor by the Ruinous Powers and scattered throughout the galaxy, the infant Angron was found, on the technologically world of Nuceria within the Ultima Segmentum, surrounded by the corpses of what were thought to be armed bandits that prowled the region. He was taken in by the locals, was fed and clothed, and according to their traditions promptly sold into slavery to repay their generosity. Given his obvious skill in the combat arts, he was forced first into small-time pit-fighting, and inevitably was traded to the great city of Nuceria and forced to fight in the capital city's gladiatorial arena. The planetary rulers used the grand spectacle of the gladiatorial arenas to slake their population's bloodlust, and to remind them of the penalty for thoughts of revolt. As the primarch grew, so too did his reputation, and his frustration. Ever-eager to boast of the brutality of their fighters, the slavers had named him Angron Thal'kyr - Lord of the Red Sands, the greatest gladiator the world had ever known - but the Emperor had made him to be more than a bloodthirsty taker of skulls. It was his name, but not what he was. Angron resented that he and his fellow gladiators were being forced to fight and kill for the pleasure of their masters, and that of the baying crowds. Even worse were the physical and mental mutilations imposed upon them to provide better sport. Implants, 'glanding' and the replacement of arms with hooks or blades were all commonplace in the arenas. Angron saw them all as an attempt to steal the only things the slaves still possessed; their dignity and sense of self. Worst of all were the psycho-surgical procedures where the Cruciamen - cybernetic cortical implants that dated to the Dark Age of Technology - and implanted directly into the brain, turning the subject into little better than a mindless berserker, barely controlled between each gladiatorial bout. Due to their uncouth and brutal nature, they were often referred to as the 'Butcher's Nails'. After suffering this fate, Angron bent all his will to escaping these puppet masters. The walls were high and the guns of their guards powerful, but using his natural talent as a warrior and leader of men, he found a way. During a massed display of gladiatorial combat, the slaves, as one, turned their weapons on their guards. Angron's meticulous and inspired planning saw to it that they took control of the arena with a minimum of casualties, but the bloodshed that followed shocked him to the core. With freedom in sight, many of Angron's gladiator brothers became uncontrollable, and with the guards routed, continued to fight rather than make good their escape. In the height of blind fury, some of the berserkers turned on the fleeing crowds and even, in their madness, their brother gladiators. The slave army escaped the city, but without their berserker brethren, which remained to kill and be killed. The experience brought home to Angron that without iron-willed self-control they would lose themselves. The look in the eyes of his blood-drunk former brothers he had been forced to kill that day convinced Angron that he himself must never suffer that fate. While the gladiators fled into the wild-lands, the rulers of the city assembled and despatched an army of mercenaries to chase them down. Angron and his brothers ambushed the overconfident and ill-disciplined soldiery, stripped them of their weapons and provisions, and sent them back to the city as a bloodied warning not to pursue them any further. However, with word of Angron's escape spreading and fomenting unrest among the gladiators in other cities, this was not something the planet's rulers were able to ignore. Fearing for their grip on power, and no longer underestimating this 'simple gladiator', a force a hundred thousand strong was mobilised and sent to scour the land. Against such overwhelming force, Angron's only option was to press further and further into the mountains, until they reached Deshe'lika Ridge, and there was nowhere left to go. At the summit of Fedan Mhor, Angron and his brothers prepared to make their stand. In the time since the loss of the primarchs, the Emperor had not been idle. Guided by His unparalleled psychic talents He homed in on His lost sons. And so it was that as Angron prepared to address his army for the hopeless battle to come, Imperial ships of the Great Crusade hastily entered orbit. Unwilling to risk losing his son before they had even been reunited, the Emperor ordered that Angron be teleported aboard, but Horus, who was accompanying his father, urgently counselled against it. Horus' peerless insight into the psychology of the warrior recognised that to whisk a true leader to safety while his army was butchered would be intolerable. He saw that such an act would irrevocably taint the relationship with bitterness and resentment from the start. Horus successfully convinced his father that there was a better way, and when the sun rose on the mountain, the slaver's armies were faced not only by Angron's former gladiators, but by the Master of Mankind, and the elite Astartes of the Luna Wolves Legion. Against such powerful adversaries, the slaver's forces were easily routed. As they fled the field in disarray, Angron approached his father through the smoke, and knelt in supplication, recognising the bond between them, and respecting the true nobility of the Emperor and His cause. Accepting the inevitable, the planet's ruling elite quietly stepped down from power, and Nuceria rapidly acceded into the Imperium. Horus took Angron under his wing, educating him in every aspect of the Imperium. In doing so, he was able to assuage his brother‟s lingering doubts that he would simply be swapping one set of chains for another; that the Emperor was far from being just another slaver who wanted him to fight and die for his own amusement. Their first meeting on Fedan Mhor had gone a long way towards this, and the presence of Horus and his Luna Wolves overcame Angron's initial misgivings about the implants and psycho-conditioning that becoming a marine entailed. At first, the process seemed to be eerily similar to the aggression chips and cybernetic implants that the slavers had forced upon the gladiators, and which had made them less than human. However, after seeing the Luna Wolves in action, Angron knew that such things were merely tools to make them more efficient warriors, and with rigid self-control they were nothing to be feared. When the Twelfth Legion finally arrived to formally meet their primarch, Angron was ready for command. Angron had not forgotten his old comrades, and the army of former slaves were the first from the planet to join his new legion. The Butcher's Nails were cast off as tools of the oppressor, and the legion was dedicated to the course of martial honour and iron-willed self-control. Berserker fury became a shadow of the past; a legacy of their enslavement that would never again be permitted. Committed to the glory of the Imperium and the Emperor, they would be masters of their own fates. Some aspects of his past - such as his own name - Angron retained, and even embraced as reminders of what they must always fight against. Back in the arena, the slavers called Angron and his fellow gladiators the Eater of Cities to brag to other cities of how violent and frenzied they were. Thus, to the surprise of members new and old, he chose it to remind them of the darkness against which they must always guard. He renamed the Twelfth Legion the World Eaters. The Horus Heresy In the following years the World Eaters became synonymous with martial honour, and were paragons of the Emperor's dream to re-unite humanity in the galaxy. Their grand companies often fought alongside those of the Luna Wolves, with Angron‟s idealism tempering Horus‟ more pragmatic approach. In fact, at a banquet to celebrate the successful completion of the Herax compliance, Horus publicly praised Angron as his 'moral compass'. When Horus was elevated to the rank of Warmaster at Ullanor, none was more forthcoming in support for his mentor than Angron, and it seemed that even with the Emperor returning to Terra, the Great Crusade would be in safe hands. Sadly, it was not to be. First the Warmaster was laid low by an unknown malady, and then word came that Roboute Guilliman had declared the vast swathes of the galactic east liberated by his Ultramarine Legion to be an independent realm - the so-called Ultramar Segmentum. Such an affront to the Imperial dream saw the World Eaters pledge themselves immediately to bringing Guilliman back to his senses, or to end this betrayal once and for all. Under the command of Rogal Dorn, the Emperor's Praetorian, seven legions assembled in orbit around the Ultramarine's latest conquest, at the fifth planet of the Istvaan system. The World Eaters, along with the Emperor's Children and Raven Guard, made planetfall into what they were told was a shattered and broken rebel legion, but instead were devastated by the guns of both the Ultramarines, and their erstwhile allies. Dorn had been corrupted by the Chaos Gods, and had taken the Imperial Fists, Iron Hands, Dark Angels and Salamanders with him into damnation. Knowing the World Eater's legendary idealism and loyalty to the Warmaster, Dorn had not even attempted to turn them to his cause. Instead, he opted to use them as a blood sacrifice to his Dark Masters, and to buy the Ultramarine's neutrality in the coming war. Wading through rivers of their own blood, the shattered remnants of the three loyal legions fought their way to evacuation. Angron's martial code demanded that such a gross betrayal must not stand unchallenged, but even he knew there was nothing to be gained from suffering a glorious massacre. Their mission now became to warn the Emperor of Dorn's treachery. After dragging as many of their fallen brethren as they could onto the evacuation landers, they came under intense fire from heavy weaponry from Salamanders commanded by Vulkan, their hideously disfigured primarch. With shuttles and landers full of his brothers exploding around him, Angron took this final opportunity to save his legion, and to fulfil his personal code. He threw open the hatch and leapt out of the slowly rising vessel into the midst of the Salamanders. The heavy weapons directed against the transports were silenced, and the few survivors of the three legions evacuated to safety. Angron's ultimate fate is a matter of heated conjecture. The World Eaters and Emperor's Children both assert that he met his end in combat with the turncoat Vulkan, while scurrilous black propaganda spouted by the Salamanders hint at a considerably less heroic end. Needless to say, ever since the Heresy the World Eaters have taken every opportunity to take the fight to the Salamanders. Any campaigns involving these two legions, such as the Battle of Skalathrax or the Cleansing of Gorthan-Liess, are bitterly contested in the extreme. After Istvaan, the World Eaters were reduced to a shadow of their former strength. They limped back to their homeworld with the intention to rebuild their forces, and to play some part in ending Dorn's treachery, but it was not to be. The Heresy had reached even their own planet. The former rulers of the world were gone from power, but still retained much wealth and influence. On their isolated estates, away from prying eyes, they continued their decadent ways and fell into the worship of Chaos. History is unclear whether this happened independently, or as part of Dorn's plot to destabilise the legion, but when they realised that the World Eaters had been decimated, and the Imperium wracked by civil war, they seized their opportunity. Private armies besieged the legitimate Imperial government, and paid agitators, sought to raise mobs in rebellion. The war was short, though, as even in their weakened state the World Eaters were quickly able to rout the enemy and re-establish order. Enraged at having power snatched away a second time, the deposed leaders enacted their final solution: if they could not have the planet, then no-one would. At their command powerful explosives detonated along seismic fault-lines and inside the planet's geothermal power plants, spewing lava across the land and choking the atmosphere with ash. This triggered further waves of volcanic activity that plunged the world into darkness, and caused a global extinction event. The World Eaters, protected by power armour, were the only survivors of the cataclysm, but even their fortress-monastery on Fedan Mhor was seriously damaged. Evacuating to their orbiting fleet, the legion stood vigil over their dying homeworld for one hundred days, and then left, vowing always to remember, but never to return. Legion Organisation Having no homeworld, the World Eater Legion is now fleet-based, and has spread itself out amongst the stars. Each grand company, numbering upwards of a thousand battle brothers and commanded by a captain and his lieutenants strive to perform their assigned duties to the utmost. Normally at least two-thirds of World Eater grand companies are to be found engaged in the Crusades proclaimed by the High Lords of Terra, a proportion unmatched by any other legion. These grand companies are at the vanguard of the battle against the Ruinous Powers and xenos threats and reclaiming areas of the galaxy long-lost to Imperial rule. Such a role is a dangerous one even for the Legionnes Astartes, and the vehemence with which the World Eaters pursue this task is enviable. Once the crusade has achieved its objective, they return to the Imperium proper to recruit, train and replenish their strength. Though this could be considered as reserve status, there are still many battles to be fought inside the Imperium. Rebellions against rightful Imperial rule are sadly all-too common, pirate fleets plague the space-lanes and even the Imperial crusades are unable to prevent wide-scale invasions by heretics and warlike alien races. The diffuse nature of the World Eater Legion means that, in practice, each grand company retains a great degree of independence. The ultimate authority is the Council of Captains, headed by the legion master, which by necessity meets almost exclusively by astropathic means. It is essential in coordinating the actions of the World Eaters across the Imperium, as well as ruling on the commitment of forces to Imperial crusades, and on rare occasions sanctioning the creation of a new grand company. Legion Recruitment Before the Heresy, the World Eaters recruited extensively from the former gladiator and pit-slave population of their homeworld. These proved to be a hardy and talented source of marines, although to their regret they found that not all were suitable. A proportion, be it through ill-treatment or by inclination, took such enjoyment and abandon in the spilling of blood that to become a World Eater was simply out of the question. Angron had seen the damage that the blood-drunk could do, to both themselves and their erstwhile friends, and decreed that iron-hard self-control was vital to become one of his legionnaires. Part of this was the removal of their aggression chips, and the ugly scar tissue that resulted from the procedure became a palpable reminder of their rejected past. In solidarity the Terran legionnaires that had never had the procedure took to tattooing the scalp above the left temple, and even ten millennia later, this practice still endures. After the destruction of their homeworld the legion necessarily had to draw their recruits from other systems. The World Eater fleets range far across the Imperium, so the legion is able to select the finest candidates wherever they may be found. Each grand company's battle barges have the knowledge and resources to recruit and train the next generation of World Eaters. The legion is well respected and universally regarded as being fair and honourable, and most planetary governors are eager to become a recruiting world, with all the added protection this entails. Legion Combat Doctrine Given their primarch's origins as a pit-fighter and gladiator, and Angron's devotion to martial honour, it is unsurprising that the legion places such a particular emphasis upon close combat. This is reflected by the high number of Assault squads found in their orders of battle, but far from being bloodthirsty maniacs, its roots come from their own code of martial honour, and ironically, a desire to avoid indiscriminate slaughter. Where many legions routinely use orbital bombardment and saturation firepower against a rebellious world, the World Eaters take great pains to minimise civilian casualties, even when it means that they themselves suffer greater losses as the result. It is against an enemy‟s leaders and military forces that they take the fight, and test their mettle; there is no honour to be gained in butchering the old, infirm or infants, especially when done from orbit. In close combat the World Eaters know and suitably value each human life they take. On many occasions, most notably the famous assault on the rebellious Partrum Junta and the boarding of the Battle Barge Black Narcissus, entire grand companies of World Eaters have taken to the field armed solely with bolt pistol and chain-axe. However, that is not to say that the World Eaters eschew ranged weaponry - particularly when facing xenos and warp-tainted opponents. The bolter is as holy an instrument of the Emperor‟s will to them as it is to any of the other loyal legions, and since their earliest days, World Eater Devastator squads have been referred with genuine honour as 'The Teeth of the World Eaters'. The legion is clinical in its assessment of the best method to eliminate the Imperium's foes, and on the battlefield Assault, Tactical and Devastator squads mesh seamlessly into an unstoppable white and azure engine of power armoured death. Legion Beliefs The World Eaters retain their primarch's sense of martial honour, discipline and iron-willed self-control. They are, if anything, even more organised and regimented than the secessionist Ultramarines and their successor chapters, although the World Eaters restrict themselves to military matters rather than extending it into the civilian side of things. Despite the betrayals and losses they suffered during the Heresy, the World Eaters have never lost their idealistic belief in the concept of the Emperor's Imperium. To this end they are endlessly willing to contribute forces to crusade alongside other legions and the Imperial Army. Unlike some of the other legions though, the World Eaters are motivated by a deep-seated belief that it is the right thing to do, rather than as part of some political machination to serve their own agendas. While the legion does maintain a Librarium of psychically gifted battle brothers, they are few in number, and their remit specialised. This springs primarily from their innate distrust of the immaterial, instead preferring to rely on the heft of an honest chain-axe to the summoning of eldritch fire. After the Heresy revealed the horrifying scope of the threat posed by the Ruinous Powers, successive legion masters began to realise the value of being able to fight on the ætheric plane as well. To this end, World Eater librarians are charged with the vital role of sensing the malefic, and warding the souls of their brethren from harm. These roles do not exempt librarians from their normal duties. They are World Eaters, and so are expected to prove themselves at the bloody edge of battle - a place in which their psychically attuned force weaponry comes in extremely useful. Wearing Chains Since the Great Crusade era the World Eaters' have worn white power armour that was mostly unadorned, save for the chains binding their weapon to their arms. The chains were a personal tradition of the XIIth Legion that had spread even amongst the other Legions from the fighting pits of the World Eaters where the practice had originated. World Eaters would chain themselves together in the fighting pits and duel to the cheers of their brothers. They entered without armour, naked but for loincloths to show they feared no wound, and to prove every warrior would fight on equal ground. For especially deserving legionaries, the XIIth even opened its pits to those born of other bloodlines. Mortuus Another ancient Legion tradition is known as a mortuus -- an official report made to the commanding officer of a Legion vessel, listing those Battle-Brothers who had fallen in battle, much as Apothecaries in the other Legions traditionally relayed them to their commanding officers. A mortuus was more than simply a casualty list, it was a remembrance -- a roll of honour, a relic for the Legion to treasure. This often took the form of names and ranks inked upon scrolls or names engraved in brass plaques, or chiseled into stone. These names would then be entered into the ship's Archive of the Fallen; other Legions used different names, such as the Thousand Sons' Dirge, or in the case of the Lunar Wolves, the Lamentation. Legion Gene-Seed Gene-seed of the Angron line suffers an unusual degree of genetic drift, and the omophagea implant is absent altogether. Adeptus Mechanicus records showed that the implant abruptly and inexplicably disappeared from samples submitted for purity testing in mid-M34. When the offer was made to return gene-seed from tithed stocks which still contained the omophagea, the legion declined the offer, stating in no uncertain terms that such an implant was no longer required. The general degradation in gene-seed quality is attributed to the use of higher than recommend doses of certain chemicals involved in marine hypnotherapy and indoctrination. This hazardous treatment allows World Eater marines to control their responses, emotions and autonomic reactions beyond that of other legions, in line with their compulsion to enforce iron-willed self-restraint on the battlefield. While this genetic drift has not yet been observed to have materially affected implant quality, there is serious concern that eventually the long term viability of the gene-seed as a whole could be in jeopardy. The Imperium can ill-afford to lose the World Eaters, but despite this the legion has strenuously resisted pressure to modify its procedures. Legion Fleet Angron]] *''Conqueror'' (Gloriana-class Battleship) - The Conqueror was the flagship of the Primarch Angron and the XIIth Legion during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. *''Blood Shrike'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Dedicated Wrath'' (Capital Ship, Unknown Class) *''Gladiator'' (Capital Ship, Unknown Class) *''Gatts' Charge'' (Capital Ship, Unknown Class) *''Industrious'' (Capital Ship, Unknown Class) *''Justified Aggressor'' (Capital Ship, Unknown Class) *''Merciless'' (Battleship) *''Silent Fury'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Cardoc'' (Transport Ship) Legion Appearance Legion Colours First as the War Hounds and then in their new incarnation as the World Eaters, the XIIth Legion have clad themselves in stark white battle-plate with deep blue on the backpack and shoulder pauldrons. A brazen helm often denotes Veteran status. Warrior-Marks Such few honours that the XIIth Legion believed in were warrior-marks of brotherhood and the scars of battle, for these things transcended rank and spoke to the worth of the Space Marine beneath the armour. The sundered chains of one who had fought overwhelming odds and lived, an allusion that spoke to Angron's own bleak history, and the bloody handprint over the face or heart bestowed by a battle leader for a warrior whose intrepidity and conspicuous gallantry had transcended that of his brothers, to the World Eaters these meant more than any mere bauble, title or trinket. Examples of such warrior-marks included: *The use of several versions of the Legion badge of the fanged maw adorning an individual Space Marine's armour, which denoted long service. *Red "tears" (more likely blood drops) painted beneath the eye lenses on a helm were thought to denote an Astartes' ritual mourning for a fallen bonded battle-brother. Legion Badge As the War Hounds Legion, the original XIIth Legion badge was that of a large red hound, rampant, centred on a field of white. This symbol was reminiscent of the epithet given to them by the Emperor Himself, for the XIIth Legion reminded Him of the white war hounds the Yeshk warriors in the north of Terra once used. After their reunion with their Primarch Angron when they were redubbed the World Eaters, their Legion badge changed to that of a great red fanged maw poised to crush a life-bearing world, centred on a field of dark blue. This iconic image was to prove entirely fitting to describe what was to come for the World Eaters. The maw was a literal representation of their Legion's name, the World Eaters, as well as the brutal violence wrought on those enemies whom failed to comply with the tenets of the Imperial Truth and allow themselves to be brought into the folds of the burgeoning Imperium. Category:W Category:First Founding Category:Imperium Category:Loyalists Category:Space Marine Legions